Question for mobile carrier employees (sales/customer service)

Hi! I have a question for you, mobile industry workers!

I'm reading a couple of mobile forums and come across many (*MANY!!!*) posts from users who have, it seems, absolutely *no clue* whatsoever as to what they have in their hands. They don't understand anything at all about their device, their service, or both. And don't you dare ask them to sit down and take some time to read the user's manual (learning is overrated anyways, isn't it?).

So!

When you're on the phone (or in person at a kiosk) with that type of customer, at what point do you just give up, or don't give a damn anymore? Have you ever sent anyone flying? Or wished they disappeared instantaneously? I don't work in the mobile industry, thankfully, and I have no doubt I could absolutely never do that job because of that. But still, I need to know... How do you do it? How do you do that work, get ***** on by customers, and still show up the next day? I work with machines, so none of that bull happens to me.

I work at the source and sell bell and virgin phones. Honestly its not bad. I prefer talking to clueless people about phones then sell other electronics to even more clueless people. After a few months of doing it I just got use to being really calm and simple with people who dont understand the devices. People that are clueless are the people I would actually rather deal with than the snarky know-it-all type that think they know more than me....those are the people that crap on me.

Yeah I get your point. I feel like people don't want to take responsibility for their own actions. Getting familiar with a device they'll use everyday should be a priority, imho. But for some reason, they won't. Being clueless is one thing, not wanting to learn is another.

An example of this is when people ask me how to factory reset their phone. Everyone here will agree it is a simple process. Not only they do not want to learn how you do it, they make it known that the next time a reset is needed, they'll still come ask you. What do you respond to this, as a salesperson/rep ? How do you stay calm hearing such utter crap? I'd lose it in the first day on the job (as I said, I work with machines, thankfully).

Any funny story to share? Since you sell Bell phones, I can't believe there is none!

@sq380: I entirely agree with you, although I also believe there is a limit on how much crap one can take in before going for the jugular. Since cellphones are wildly popular and everyone and their mom has one, they also bear a bad reputation (people feeling they're being ripped off, insane bills, international charges, etc) and I've seen salespeople get yelled and screamed at, publicly, at kiosks in malls. Although I'm not a fan of greedy mobile carriers, I can't help but feel bad for these workers. That's what I was trying to point out.

Yeah I get your point. I feel like people don't want to take responsibility for their own actions. Getting familiar with a device they'll use everyday should be a priority, imho. But for some reason, they won't. Being clueless is one thing, not wanting to learn is another.

An example of this is when people ask me how to factory reset their phone. Everyone here will agree it is a simple process. Not only they do not want to learn how you do it, they make it known that the next time a reset is needed, they'll still come ask you. What do you respond to this, as a salesperson/rep ? How do you stay calm hearing such utter crap? I'd lose it in the first day on the job (as I said, I work with machines, thankfully).

Any funny story to share? Since you sell Bell phones, I can't believe there is none!

Thanks!

Honestly the mall I work in is the worst for this kind of stuff. Its in the "retirement area" of the city. Doesent help that the senior hangout resturant is next door. I get alot of people that "dont want to learn". Its not honestly as harsh as you think it is. Something as simple as factory reseting a phone takes me all of 15 seconds. Its something i may have to do for a customer once a month maybe? Most of the stuff they want help with I can do in under a min which doesent bug me. I guess you just need more patience :P

Only story I can think of was actually not the customer but the retail support rep. Customer has a bell aliant account (atlantic canada bell aliant for residential services is bell aliant not bell for everything but mobile) and wanted a virgin cell phone. He had an existing bell cell and just wanted to port the bell cell number to virgin and cancel the bell mobile number. We can't do ports inter-company inhouse so I had to use a dummy phone number on the virgin phone until the activation was finshed then I call retail support and they port and cancel. So I call and everything goes through and the customer leaves. Guy comes in the next morning upset because the home phone number on his bell aliant account was ported by mistake. Because of the disconnection with bell and bell-aliant none of the call centers deal with eachother/have access to the same information. Well 9 hours later and calling roughly 15-20 different lines I got everything sorted out with it (this was also a saturday night where I was only in 5pm-9pm).

The problem is most people just want to hand it to me, and have me fix it. For small things, such as low ringer volume and deleting contacts for example, I'll show someone how to do it.

When it comes to making you a gmail acct, so you can download facebook and then have me sign you up for facebook. No. Youtube how to do that yourself. I don't have time to do that, when multiple people who are waiting in to activate phones I get paid commission on.

I tell people all the time, you need to embrace the journey of learning how to use a smartphone. The first step is getting on youtube and watching the reviews.

Also, actually take the time to think about what you're doing. If the phone ringer is low, try pressing the volume up button...

Most of the time, relatives and friends ask me to spoon-feed them with their tech gadgets. I don't have clients per se since I work in a completely different field, but just like Bane, I was born in it and know a thing or two about gadgets/computers. But they always find a way to make me ashamed of living on this planet.

Like Eyeronik mentioned, resetting a phone takes a couple of seconds. However, the frustration come from knowing the person you're doing it for isn't even remotely interested in knowing how to do their own maintenance. Don't they see any value at all in what we/you do? In my opinion, when you value something, you at least pay attention, but no! They might as well tell you to your face that what you do is utterly useless since it doesn't have any value. And by value, I don't necessarily mean dollar signs. Pride comes into play. First time I changed a kitchen faucet, I watched countless numbers of Youtube videos (tried to learn, was willing to put effort into it). I did it, and it worked. Now that I know how to do it, I won't ever have to pay a plumber for this. Don't these people want to be free from the kiosk? I know I would not want to drive to the mall everytime I wanted to reset my phone.

What I'm trying to say is that I sympathize with mobile salespeople/reps a lot. You do an amazing job staying calm explaining to idiots when I would clearly have shot myself in the face. I often go to the kiosk (I'm a Koodo subscriber) while waiting for the wife to be done shopping, and while there, I see/hear a lot of crap from customers. Broken screens that are "not their fault, it cracked on its own", phones stuck in a bootloop after a failed CyanogenMod'ing attempt (the kid even went so far as to say his phone started showing a skateboarding Android robot for no reason), prorated billing that makes people feel like they're being scammed, and many other things like this. And I have yet to see any rep even raise their voice. I've seen one explain at least, I kid you not, 15 times over how to add a contact on a Galaxy Ace, yet the lady kept saying "still not comfortable doing it, please do it again". And I'm not talking about the elders who bring back year-old devices, drop them on the counter, and expect to be reimbursed to the last penny because "they never used them"".